Ministry of Transportation Environmental Standards Project
In November 2007, the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) posted seven decision notices on the Environmental Registry that all fall under the umbrella of MTO’s ongoing Environmental Standards Project. The posted decisions were:
- Environmental Reference for Highway Design
- Wildlife and Transportation Reference Document for the Oak Ridges Moraine
- Environmental Guide for Patrol Yard Design
- Environmental Guide for Contaminated Property Identification and Management
- Environmental Guide for Erosion and Sediment Control During Construction of Highway Projects
- Environmental Guide for Fish and Fish Habitat
- MTO/DFO/MNR Fisheries Protocol for Protecting Fish and Fish Habitat on Provincial Transportation Undertakings
MTO oversees over 16,000 kilometres of highway, including the 400-series highways, arterial and collector roads, and any other roads not administered by municipalities. For the 2007/2008 fiscal year, MTO was allocated an annual capital budget of $1.12 billion. This covered everything from the construction of new highways, road widening projects and drainage improvements to new lighting and road resurfacing.
In March 2004, the MTO announced that it was compiling and standardizing its various environmental standards, policies and guidelines into a systematic, centrally located format, as part of its Environmental Standards Project. The ECO reviewed the initial decisions under this project in the 2004-2005 Annual Report. The intent has been to pull all of the environmental guidelines, policies, procedures and practices related to highway planning, design, construction, operation and maintenance together in one place, ensure the material is comprehensive, and update any out-of-date information (see the ECO’s detailed review in the Supplement to this year's Annual Report).
Environmental Reference for Highway Design
The purpose of this reference document is to provide guidance to consultants in addressing environmental assessment issues during the preliminary planning and detailed design phase of transportation projects. It is intended to provide consultants with information on the legislative obligations, technical quality requirements, and program delivery expectations of MTO.
Wildlife and Transportation Reference Document for the Oak Ridges Moraine
This reference document is intended to provide suggestions to help address the environmental protection requirements for the Oak Ridges Moraine, specifically those related to facilitating wildlife movement and maintaining ecological integrity. This document is not intended to apply across the whole of the province, and is considered a literature review rather than a “how to” manual by MTO.
Environmental Guide for Patrol Yard Design
This guide is intended to outline the typical potential environmental concerns to be considered by MTO staff and contractors during the design of new patrol yards (i.e., the areas where MTO stores and maintains their equipment, as well as salt and sand storage areas). The guide features environmental design considerations, including those designed to minimize impacts by choosing an appropriate site for the patrol yard.
Environmental Guide for Contaminated Property Identification and Management
This guide is intended to direct the assessment of environmental site conditions and liabilities and the identification of options for mitigation on contaminated sites that MTO owns. The guide is to be used either when MTO is acquiring a contaminated property or when a property is being disposed of.
Environmental Guide for Erosion and Sediment Control During Construction of Highway Projects
This guide is intended to provide information and direction to:
- strengthen the management of highway projects by implementing a modern erosion and sediment control management approach;
- consider the use of alternative and cost effective erosion and sediment control techniques;
- facilitate easy access to and consistent application of erosion and sediment control techniques and drainage management practices across all MTO regions of the province;
- allow development of effective erosion and sediment control through a variety of delivery methods;
- ensure that MTO regulatory concerns are addressed in a consistent and comprehensive manner; and
- address issues that are sources of potential liability to MTO as a result of the erosion of earth surfaces or the sedimentation of water courses.
Implications of the Decision
MTO staff and MTO’s consultants are expected to apply these key environmental reference documents and guides to all transportation projects. In addition, they are referenced in the legal documents that are signed when a contract is awarded, and integrated with MTO’s Class Environmental Assessment (EA) for Provincial Transportation Facilities.
The documents summarize existing legislated requirements, and do not set requirements beyond what is legislated. The new references and guides do not change how MTO staff, contractors and others apply or interpret MTO’s Class EA process. The new guides do not change how a route is selected or where highways will be built or expanded in the future.
ECO Comment
The ECO commends MTO for recognizing the need to centralize all of this information. MTO staff has noted that the Environmental Standards Project is a ‘living’ process and that the project needs to be assigned a high priority and allocated sufficient ongoing resources in order to keep it up to date.
The ECO notes, however, that the Environmental Standards Project does not resolve some of the underlying problems with the highway planning process, EA process and the actual construction process. These documents and guides only apply once the decision has already been made to build a highway. The ECO has previously outlined these concerns in its 2004-2005 Annual Report. For example, the ECO noted that the Provincial Policy Statement allows infrastructure, including highways, in provincially significant wetlands.
The compiling and up dating of these references and guides does not change the fact that highways are frequently built along the only corridor that is left after the rest of an area has been approved for development. This situation ‘pushes’ roads into areas where many natural heritage features are located. The ECO has pointed out in past Annual Reports that many Ontario residents are very frustrated with the EA process for highways. Development often seems inevitable, and roads and highways may be built through natural areas regardless of the impacts that they will have on the environment.
The ECO remains concerned with instances where the “Environmental Protection Requirements” (EPRs), the document that synthesizes the legislation applicable to MTO projects, inappropriately qualifies environmental statutory requirements with phrases such as “to the extent that is technically, physically and economically practicable.” This seems to provide road planners, designers and contractors with loopholes that aren’t contained in or intended by the original legislation being summarized. Although this document is not one of the decision notices that is being reviewed here, it is an integral component of the overall Environmental Standards Project. The ECO raised concerns about this same language in its 2004-2005 Annual Report.
The ECO is pleased to note that there was training for MTO environmental staff on the documents and guides when they were ‘launched’ in 2007. However, training on the guides is not compulsory for contractors or consultants.
While MTO’s environmental standards are intended, primarily, to help during the planning and design stages for new transportation projects, a key concern is how carefully the standards, such as sediment and erosion control, are interpreted and implemented on the ground by hundreds of contracting companies working for MTO. There are contract administrators on site to oversee projects, but compliance with environmental standards and guidelines are only a small part of their overall responsibilities.
Contracts have a definitive end date and once that date is reached, contractors are expected to have provided all the contract requirements in a functioning state. MTO states that it has monitoring, enforcement, sanction and appraisal systems for contractors who do not comply fully with environmental requirements. Nevertheless, the ECO remains concerned that environmental requirements are perceived to be a low priority for contractors, despite the detail laid out in these MTO environmental standards documents and guides. MTO notes that the ministry has issued three environmental infractions to contractors in each of years 2005, 2006 and 2007.
Considering the scale of the ministry’s contracted work province-wide and its $1.12 billion capital budget, this modest compliance activity is surprising. It may reflect an insufficient level of compliance monitoring.
MTO usually does not carry out environmental compliance monitoring or auditing of its highway projects at the post-construction phase. The intense scheduling and budgetary pressures typical in the highway construction industry make it unrealistic to expect that up-front environmental standards alone will be effective, given limited field monitoring and enforcement and the absence of field auditing. This is an issue that MTO should be addressing corporately, with the active participation of branches such as the ministry’s Contract Management and Operations Branch. The ECO will be monitoring how MTO continues to implement the Environmental Standards Project.
| This is an article from the 2007/08 Annual Report to the Legislature from the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. |
Citing This Article:
Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 2008. "Ministry of Transportation Environmental Standards Project." Getting to K(No)w, ECO Annual Report, 2007-08. Toronto, ON : Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. 124-128.
